If your book was made into a film, who would you like to see cast in it?

In my total fantasy land, Jennifer Lawrence would play Chloe. She can sing, she can do a sort of beaten-down surliness that’s a lot like what I see Chloe retreating into when she’s feeling her most isolated, and she does a really amazing fake-happy/fake-friendly that Chloe needs a lot of. But then, Lawrence is one of the biggest actresses in the world, deservedly so, so her ability kind of goes without saying.

My second thought would be that I’d absolutely love to see what Melissa Benoist would do with the part. I’ve mostly seen her do lighter things, but she can channel some really intense vulnerability, and I think she’d be able to show the audience both Chloe’s inner life and the front she presents to the world at the same time, which would be vital to telling the story without the inner monologue you can have in a book. And obviously, her musical credentials are through the roof.

My first instinct for Jon would be Elden Henson. He’s got the look, he can do the sweetness, and I imagine he could do the edge that Jon takes on as he’s fighting through his depression. I don’t know if he can sing or do impressions though. Honestly, the part is specialized enough that they’d probably have to find an actor I’ve never even heard of who has just the right combination of skills.

Breanna, Chloe’s best friend and lifeline, doesn’t have to sing, and her physical description is vague, so filmmakers would have a lot of flexibility here. The important thing is that she radiates positivity, confidence, and the sense that she’s living a full, wild life of her own whether Chloe (or the audience) feels like paying attention or not. My personal pick would be Sarah Yarkin.

For Roger, Jon’s late father who features prominently in the flashback timeline, this is kind of an out-there choice, but I’d really, really want Kenneth Branagh. He can do an American accent, and even if he couldn’t, you could rationalize it and it would be worth it. He could bring all the bombast the part requires, but with the little bit of sadness that makes him such a conflicting figure for Chloe and, I hope, for the audience.

After a year of making beautiful music together, Chloe Hatherly thinks she’s more than ready to make the age-old promise to her bandmate, Jon. In sickness and in health, for better or worse. When the sudden death of Jon’s father forces the couple to postpone their wedding in favor of a funeral, however, their relationship veers rapidly off course from the ever after they’d both envisioned. Now living in her intended father-in-law’s memory-steeped house and acting as round-the-clock caregiver for her fiancé’s worsening depression, Chloe finds herself afflicted with a songwriter’s block for which she’s only ever known one cure: leaving and writing a killer breakup song. Unlike the subjects of her past lyrical rants, Chloe can’t picture her life without Jon in it, and she begins to wonder if there’s a way to save the music she loves while keeping the vows she never had the chance to make — or if she and Jon have already been irrevocably parted by death, albeit not their own.

The Future Mrs. Brightside is an uncomfortably honest, sometimes hilarious, fiercely romantic prose ballad to the hideous beauty of love in good times and bad.

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